Berks County

Service Members, Veterans & Their Families

VA Medical Center Is Here to Help

Valley News - 1/7/2018

VA Medical Center Is Here to Help

New Year’s resolutions are on everyone’s mind, and here at the White River Junction VA Medical Center, we like to look at the New Year as a chance to renew our pledge to provide the care our veterans have earned and deserve. As our veterans approach 2018 with the goal to remain healthy, become more active, quit smoking, learn how to cook healthfully, or just be more proactive about their health care, we would like to extend a hand and offer our help in setting them up for success.

We have staff ready to help find the care you qualify for in the community. We have nutrition services that can help you jump start your year on the right foot. Our comprehensive health care system encompasses services such as mental health, primary care, a wide range of specialty care services including pain management, as well as a host of “whole health” initiatives that are all here to help you take control of your health care.

If you are a veteran not yet enrolled with the VA health care system and would like to learn more about it, please contact our eligibility office at 802-295-9363 ext. 5118. Let us help to repay the debt our nation owes its veterans and help you make 2018 your most successful and healthy year yet. Matthew MulcahyActing Medical Center DirectorWhite River JunctionReplace Green Mountain Care Board Chair

Readers will be forgiven for passing over the Dec. 27 yawner on page A2 “Vt. Mulls New Hospital Rules; Regulators Want to Ease Review.” The headline cleverly plays on the name of the new Republican chairman of the Green Mountain Care Board — Kevin Mullin — who was appointed last May by Vermont’s Republican governor.

Readers also will be forgiven for not knowing who Kevin Mullin is, especially since the article did not mention ALEC, the American Legislative Exchange Council. ALEC is a Koch brothers’ funded organization which coordinates horrific state-level legislation below most of our radar, promoted in cookie-cutter fashion across the 50 states.

Donald Trump is not the only one appointing foxes to oversee henhouses. Kevin Mullin needs to be re-linked to his many years as Vermont’s lone representative to ALEC. Mullin has no business chairing our health care oversight board. I believe he should be replaced, along with the governor who appointed him. Robert SpottswoodNorwichStop Crying About the Tax Plan

I am getting pretty tired of all the nonsense about Trump’s tax plan. First, it is a plan that is better than nothing, which is what the other group of do-nothing folks offered. Second, stop blaming this for the problems with the Affordable Care Act. Obamacare premiums have gone up ever since its inception and yes, this was long before Trump was elected.

If you are living off of those of us who work for a living, this is a great perk, like rent assistance, food stamps, fuel aid, and the list goes on. The real problem with society today is everyone feels that they are owed everything, and there are fewer and fewer folks willing to go to work and earn anything.

If the folks who do not like the direction of our country spent half as much time trying to fix it as they do tearing apart those who actually are, we all would be better off. Nobody working for a living today will lose health care due to the tax bill, period. If they do, it will be their choice.

If we stopped subsidizing these types of programs with tax dollars the price would actually go down because all the perks would dry up and those who are administering these welfare programs from the top down would be forced to get a real job.

Stop crying and let us determine how this tax bill affects us next year. Then we can all decide if we like it or not. But in the end, it will not be anywhere near as bad as the tax hike we working-class folks all received with Obamacare. Doug TuthillWest Hartford